Cheers for Champions: Principal De La Rosa

In “Cheers for Champions,” a new special feature of The Brighter Byte newsletter, Brighter Bites turns the spotlight to teachers, administrators, parents, volunteers, and other shining stars who have made outstanding contributions to our program.

Today we celebrate Principal Diana De La Rosa of Northline Elementary School in Houston, TX. We are so lucky to call Principal De La Rosa a great friend to our program, and now… a champion!

Principal De La Rosa (second from right), surrounded by Brighter Bites staff and parent volunteers

Since Brighter Bites began programming at Northline last fall, Principal De La Rosa has been extremely enthused about making health a fully integrated feature of her school. In addition to coordinating with Physical Education coaches, counselors, and parent volunteers to make sure all three pillars of Brighter Bites were executed to perfection, Principal De La Rosa arranged to put weekly CATCH “MVP” bulletin boards up around the school to highlight how different teachers stay healthy and inspire her young students to follow suit.

Principal De La Rosa also implemented a school garden and empowered parents to take ownership by developing a watering schedule. Her vision for the garden is to provide half of the harvest to the parents paying into the garden co-op and the other half to the school’s cafeteria staff to make healthy sides for students’ lunch trays. The garden ensures Northline will have continued access to fresh produce.

At the end of the school day you may find Principal De La Rosa teaching cooking classes out of the demo kitchen in her office area that Brighter Bites recipes. On Brighter Bites days, you will always find her engaging with families at distribution, trying the recipe sample, and encouraging all parents and students to do the same!

One week when Brighter Bites was short on volunteers, Principal De La Rosa rolled up her sleeves and jumped in to help bag produce for our families. She then came to distribution that same day, where she asked each parent to try the sample and encouraged them to volunteer.

Thanks to Principal De La Rosa’s passion and continuous support of Brighter Bites, her teachers taught all of the CATCH lessons at Northline that are recommended in the CATCH program. We are so excited to return to Northline Elementary School next year to continue building communities of health through fresh food with Principal De La Rosa and her loyal army of parent volunteers!

Cheers to Principal De La Rosa, and cheers to ALL Brighter Bites champions!